Our View: Dealing with domestic violence

For a minute there, we thought it was just us noticing what seems a rash of domestic disputes turned as tragic as it gets.

Between the ongoing Leuthold trial in which a Peoria man is accused of murdering his wife, this week’s story regarding the suicide of the ex-husband of a woman found strangled to death in May, the murders at an East Peoria bar last month, the Pekin man who put a knife through his belly after first threatening his fiancee with it, the horrific tale of a Texas man allegedly killing six members of his ex-wife’s family, including four children ... well, what’s going on? It does seem that rocky-relationships-gone-violent have reached a scarier-than-normal level, which is saying something.

Unfortunately, “it’s not an aberration,” says Martha Herm, executive director of The Center for Prevention of Abuse, who reports that the two emergency shelters her organization operates in central Illinois are full and pretty much always are. Just the night before, six families had called the hotline needing help. In all the agency serves some 5,000 victims of domestic and other violence annually — mostly women and children, the elderly and disabled, men who find themselves in danger — about 10 percent of whom land in one of the shelters for as much as a six-week stay, sometimes longer if the circumstances warrant.

Many are repeat visitors. On average domestic abuse victims leave their homes seven times before they get out for good, if they ever do.

Of course, it can be easy for those looking from the outside in to say that victims just need to put as much distance between themselves and the abuser as possible. “‘If that happens to me, I’d leave in a second,’” parrots Herm, who’s obviously heard it all before. “But the problem is, leave and go where?” Not everybody has nearby family who can take them in. Safe and affordable housing is not in abundant supply. Financial support may be largely or entirely dependent on the abuser, who’s promising he’ll never do it again. If kids are involved, even if home life is bad they still may miss their father. Emotional investments have been made that can feel impossible to sever. No shelter is home. And so the abuser gets a second chance, and a third, and a ...

In many cases, “the abuse isn’t horrible all the time,” says Herm. “The journey to get to such an abusive situation took a long time ... so walking away doesn’t happen overnight, either.” That’s why counseling and other kinds of tangible assistance regarding relocation alternatives are available at the Center, though they tend not to push too hard. Frequently the abuser is obsessed with losing control over a relationship, so the last thing those trying to help want to do is become “the next source of power and control.” Beyond that, personal safety is the foremost consideration. Sometimes it’s just not healthy to leave right away, sometimes an escape has to be planned.

Page 2 of 2 - What’s different now, what takes the abuse to another, potentially lethal dimension? Well, there’s a lot of rage out there, with easy access to lethal means in the heat of the moment. Technology allows people trying to save themselves to be tracked more easily than in years past. Again, it’s all about exercising power over someone else, and so the abuser decides “if I can’t have her, nobody can. That’s where we see the murder,” said Herm.

We appreciate that love and sometimes hate are powerful and sometimes irrational emotions, but it does seem like we’re in get-a-grip territory here. No one should want to become a front-page story, victim or abuser alike. If only those contemplating harm to someone else could take a step back and try to imagine the damage — to themselves, to family members, to their immediate communities — their actions are about to unleash, perhaps we’d see fewer of these.

When that doesn’t happen, the Center for Prevention of Abuse’s 24-hour hotline number is 800-559-7233. Don’t hesitate to call if you need to.